


Fugitive of the Division

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Two Can Play At That Game [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Identities, Alternate Universe, Chameleon Arch (Doctor Who), Doctor Who Series 12 Spoilers, Doctor Who Spoilers, Episode AU: s12e05 Fugitive of the Judoon, Episode: s12e05 Fugitive of the Judoon, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, I mean it's the Judoon. Police brutality is par for the course, If You're Both Alternate Versions of the Same Person Is Your Crush on Them Gay or Just Vanity?, Jenny Smith/Harry Jones - Timeline B, Other, Parenthood, Police Brutality, Pregnancy, Spoilers for Episode: s12e05 Fugitive of the Judoon, Timeline What Timeline, You Can't Throw a Rock in This Fic Without Hitting Someone Who's Secretly a Time Lord
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:47:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24440812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: (Timeline B)Spring 2020: With one of their last quiet weekends before their second child is born, Jenny Smith and Harry Jones take a short holiday in Gloucester. What started off as a pleasant day (befriending the local tour guide, antagonizing the local baker, inventing historical vampires, and yelling at swans) suddenly takes a turn for the worse when a platoon of intergalactic police rhinos arrives in search of a fugitive.So, of course, Professional Disaster Nerds Jenny and Harry have to throw themselves into the thick of things before anyone else gets hurt.
Relationships: Lee Clayton & The Master (Dhawan), Lee Clayton/The Doctor | Ruth Clayton, The Doctor | Ruth Clayton & Thirteenth Doctor, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Two Can Play At That Game [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733089
Comments: 45
Kudos: 99





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place in the "Timeline B" version of the ending to _Two Can Play At That Game:_ where the Doctor and the Master use the Chameleon Arch to turn themselves back into Jenny Smith and Harry Jones and live the rest of their lives together as humans. Chronologically, it takes place a few years prior to the story _[Suzi and the Night Man.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026617)_
> 
> As this fic is set during an episode with the Judoon, some police brutality tropes apply, but it's roughly on the same level as their actions in the episode.

Morning came in through the bedroom window like a brick hurled through glass: sudden, highly inconvenient, and massively disruptive.

At least that was Harry’s opinion, but that might have been due to the fact that he had been up late the night before and didn’t have any coffee in him yet.

He was still groggy enough, in fact, that it took him a few minutes to remember that he wasn’t at home, but in bloody Gloucester of all places.

His nose started twitching from the hair in his face, a combination of his own disheveled locks and Jenny’s hair, which was a common occurrence since he usually slept curled up beside her with his face buried in the nape of her neck.

His wife had a tendency to roll around in her sleep, and after he moved in with her and spent the first few nights getting smacked in the face by a stray elbow, Harry hit upon the solution of wrapping his arms and legs around her and more or less pinning her in place. It turned out to work rather well, though whenever they were apart Harry had trouble falling asleep without the presence of someone to wrestle into unconsciousness, and Jenny apparently kept rolling off the side of the bed, to the point where she started putting pillows on the floor as a precaution.

Though at this point in her pregnancy, rolling around was a bit more challenging.

They (Jenny, more accurately) were now well into the third trimester and, if the last time was any indication, it meant that her mobility would soon decrease in an inverse correlation to her level of back pain. Which was why they were taking the opportunity to spend a weekend alone on a short holiday, even if it was just in Gloucester: to get one last bit of relaxation in before everything changed again.

“I always meant to go at some point,” Jenny explained when she first suggested the destination. “Fantastic history there, lots of priories from the Middle Ages—love a good priory—and it’s close enough to Leeds for a weekend trip.”

“Even though you want to go on a Monday,” Harry pointed out.

She did the cute nose-scrunching thing (which never failed to make Harry’s heart skip a beat) and waved a hand dismissively. “Weekends are a social construct. Besides, I’ll be at a conference in Geneva until Sunday morning. We can drive down after that.”

Due to a delayed flight, “Sunday morning” ended up being “Sunday evening” which meant that by the time they got to their Airbnb in Gloucester, it was after midnight.

And, therefore, Harry was a bit cross that the morning had shown up far earlier than he preferred.

Maybe he could get a few more minutes of sleep before—

“Mmm,” Jenny murmured, shifting a little in his arms. “Good morning.”

Well, that put a stop to _that_ particular hope. “It’s too early,” he grumbled. 

“Suzi gets us up far earlier than this,” she pointed out.

“We never should have taught her to walk,” he joked. “It’s led to all sorts of inconvenience. Besides, we’re on holiday, we should get to sleep in.”

“You, maybe.” She sat up with a grunt of effort. “I want to see the sights.”

“It’s _Gloucester,_ how many sights are there to see?”

“Well, what do _you_ have planned, then?”

“Sleeping, followed by an attempt to manifest a cup of coffee using only the power of my mind.”

She snorted with a brief laugh. “You’re persuasive, but you’re not _that_ persuasive. I’ll go check the kitchen while you stay here and sulk.”

“I am not sulking!” Harry called after her.

A few minutes later, he heard the words he most dreaded: “Looks like they’ve only got tea here,” Jenny shouted from the other room.

Harry did his best to keep his noises of displeasure confined to his pillow.

“Tell you what,” she said once she returned to the bedroom and began to get dressed. “If I see a cafe on my walk, I’ll send you a text.”

“Saving the world yet again,” he said with a smile.

Meanwhile, Jenny was grimacing at her clothing options. “I almost can’t fit into these anymore,” she complained as she pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, followed by a maternity t-shirt that she had screen-printed the image of a Gibson electric guitar onto. She glared down at her stomach. “You’d better have a good singing voice or something to compensate for all this effort,” she informed its occupant.

“You said that to Suzi as well, and all we got was someone who managed to break every childproof lock that we owned,” Harry noted.

“If we decide to have another one, _you’re_ doing the heavy lifting next time,” she retorted.

“Two’s probably the limit: if they’re anything like Suzi, I’m not sure we’d want to be outnumbered.”

She fastened her silver locket around her neck and reached for her grey coat—the only parts of her usual wardrobe that she could still wear. “Meet you somewhere near the Cathedral for lunch?” she asked.

“I look forward to hearing all about the gruesome deaths of various monks,” he confirmed. “Should I look for a spot?”

“No need. I’m going to find a tour guide; they’ll likely have a few suggestions.”

Harry tried not to roll his eyes. In his opinion, there were few things more annoying than the sorts of people who dragged tourists around on their idea of an educational journey. He preferred to do his own research rather than rely on someone else’s knowledge.

Unless that person was Jenny, and even then he considered it a massive concession.

Harry’s preferred method of visiting a new place was to behave as much like a local as he could. It was a bit like going undercover and, as a bonus, was much cheaper than anything one would encounter as a tourist.

“Remember the coffee,” he said as he sat up to kiss her goodbye. They had learned the hard way that if Jenny did the bulk of the bending over in this situation, she was likely to fall on top of him, and even when she wasn’t pregnant she was much heavier than she looked.

They had fallen in love while travelling through time and space with the Doctor, seeing all sorts of incredible things and saving the world while they were at it. Compared to that, the life of two scholars in Leeds, with a two-year-old daughter and another child on the way, was almost embarrassingly dull.

But strangely, Harry couldn’t help enjoying the banality of it all.

_Saving the world one week, saving empty grocery bags the next._

He could think of worse ways to spend his life.

“All right, Gloucester,” Jenny said cheerfully to herself as she headed for the door, “do your worst.”

* * *

Despite Harry not always being the best company first thing in the morning (though, in her opinion, his grumpy expression was rather adorable), Jenny did wish that he had come with her because it would have provided her with someone at whom to yell “Ooo, look at the swan!”

Not that it kept her from doing it anyway, even if it was just for her own benefit: she pointed at the waterfowl in the canal, cried “Ooo, look at the swan!” and assumed that a few passersby overheard it. 

It was always better to travel with someone, Jenny believed, and even better to show them something that they’d never seen before.

Though she supposed that the swans weren’t exactly a novel sighting for the people who actually lived here.

It being a Monday, most of the people walking along the canal were likely on their way to work or school, which probably also explained the general lack of enthusiasm, though she did hear a woman up ahead chatting excitedly, but couldn’t quite make out the words or what she looked like—just a pleasant voice floating down the canal with the swans.

Unfortunately, due to her current circumstances (which in Jenny’s mind was often spelled with a capital-C), Jenny didn’t have a hope in the world of catching up with her.

She really didn’t remember everything being this exhausting back when she was pregnant with Suzi.

“Maybe this means you’ll be tall,” she muttered, sitting down on a nearby bench to rest her feet for a moment. “Though given your parents’ height, it’s not very likely.”

She occupied herself with thoughts of recessive genes until she was ready to get moving again.

It was difficult to miss Gloucester Cathedral, given its height, and even on a Monday morning the area was full of people, though most of them weren’t stopping.

Jenny was halfway across the green when she heard a familiar voice: it was the woman she had overheard on the canal path. With dark skin, long brown dreadlocks, and a very friendly expression, she stood near an A-frame sign advertising guided tours and passed out flyers from the stack she was carrying with her.

“First time in Gloucester?” the woman asked everyone who came within a three meter radius. “First time in Gloucester? Try my guided tour!”

To Jenny’s confusion, no one seemed to be very eager to stop and talk with her, despite her looking extremely approachable. However, the lack of interest didn’t seem to diminish the woman’s enthusiasm. “I know all the exciting facts about Gloucester, yes I do,” she proclaimed. “Test me!”

“Have you got a lot of swans in the canal?” Jenny asked as she walked up to her.

The woman looked surprised, though fortunately it seemed like a pleasant surprise. She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know if anyone’s done an official tally,” she admitted, “but I’ve counted at least seven different pairs on my walk to work. Saw a nest near the Docks, but stayed far away from that one.”

“Ooo, yeah, they’re pretty territorial once they’ve laid their eggs,” Jenny said with a wince. “I heard they drowned a man once. Not here,” she added quickly, then frowned. “At least I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s not impossible: the canal’s about three and a half meters deep.” The woman grinned, showing a tiny gap between her front teeth that Jenny found rather cute. “The male and female swans split the household duties evenly: building the nest, sitting on the eggs, defending it… apparently drowning intruders as well—rather progressive, don’t you think?”

“Between my husband and me, I’m probably the one most likely to violently attack someone,” Jenny joked. “Though Harry did stab a spacesuit and impale it on the nearest wall once—don’t worry, it was empty,” she reassured her. “Though still rather dangerous.”

“A spacesuit?”

“Never mind,” she said hastily. “It’s my first time in Gloucester and I’d like a guided tour!”

The woman blinked. “Really?”

“Of course!” She introduced herself: “Jenny Smith.”

“Ruth Clayton,” the woman replied, shaking the hand that Jenny offered.

“I know, you’ve got it on your sign,” Jenny pointed out. “Love a good sign. The first tour starts at ten?”

Ruth looked around at the disinterested people passing them by. “We can probably start early.” She turned to the old woman knitting a scarf on a nearby bench. “Marcia, can you watch my sign? I’ll be back in a few hours.”

The woman—Marcia—looked amused. “Can’t think of anyone who would want to walk off with it, dear.”

Apparently that counted as assent, because Ruth folded the sign and leaned it against the side of the bench.

“How much do I owe you?” Jenny asked, digging through her coat pocket for her wallet.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ruth said. “Monday’s a slow day and I don’t get many people looking for tours. I’m just excited to show someone around.” Her delighted expression was evidence of that claim. “It’s fantastic to watch people encounter things they’ve never seen before.”

“At least let me buy you a coffee or something,” Jenny offered, then remembered what she told Harry before she left. “Oh! Can you recommend any cafes nearby?”

“I know just the place,” Ruth said. “Follow me.”

Their destination was a surprisingly spacious cafe which, as far as Jenny could tell, was until recently some kind of pub. She examined the case containing baked goods while Ruth ordered a coffee. 

Jenny had never exactly been _good_ at making friends. Even though it was over two years since she and Harry moved to Leeds, neither of them had many people who they considered more than casual acquaintances. They were on cordial terms with their neighbours, despite the time Jenny accidentally set the back garden on fire at three in the morning, but the only people they were even remotely close with were Mr and Mrs Khamari, who were really more like family than friends. 

Shortly after Harry moved in with her, he had gotten mixed up on where he was meeting Jenny for dinner and went to the wrong Indian restaurant in their neighbourhood, then left his phone behind in his rush to get to their actual meeting place. When he sheepishly came by the next morning to retrieve it, the elderly couple who owned the restaurant took one look at Harry’s messy hair, unshaven face, and general aura of ‘trying his best’ and declared themselves his adopted parents because he obviously needed someone to watch out for him (and their own children apparently never called or visited because they had all moved out of the country). The Khamaris badgered Harry to eat a decent meal, badgered him into leaving his flat on a regular basis, and badgered him into proposing to Jenny. After Suzi was born, they declared themselves her grandparents, which was how this trip to Gloucester was even possible, since they had offered to watch her while Harry and Jenny were out of town.

But a handful of colleagues, some patient neighbours, and a pair of pushy Indian immigrants was a rather limited social circle, which was why Jenny was genuinely surprised at how easily she and Ruth had got on. In the span of only a short walk from the Cathedral to their current location, Jenny felt like they had known one another for years.

She was so engrossed in figuring out whether the scones she was looking at contained blueberries or chocolate chips that she wasn’t paying attention to Ruth’s conversation with the barista until he placed an overstuffed brown folder on the counter.

“Is that an actual dossier?” Ruth asked incredulously.

“Yes, on Lee,” the man confirmed eagerly. “My Lee dossier.” Over Ruth’s shoulder, Jenny could see a picture of a light-skinned man on a mobile phone taped to the front of the folder, with the words “Lee Clayton” taped underneath.

“Your husband?” she asked Ruth.

“Yes,” Ruth confirmed. She sighed at the man behind the counter. “Allan, come on.”

Allan looked almost desperate. “He hardly talks to anyone, cuts his own hair, gets weird books out of the library—”

“I do all those things too,” Jenny interjected, noticing that Ruth was visibly irritated. “Got a file on me?”

The man gave her a brief frown and then pressed on. “He claims that his family’s from ‘round here but I can’t find anyone who knew them—”

“Because he’s from Stroud,” Ruth corrected him. 

“There are so many things about him that don’t add up. How can you trust someone like that?”

“Do you want a scone?” Jenny asked, trying to change the subject.

“Not at the moment.” Ruth was still looking at Allan. “Thank you for my birthday coffee,” she said stiffly.

“Ruth, I’m telling you, I hear things,” he insisted. “They don’t call me All-Ears Allan for nothing.”

She headed for the door. “It’s not a nickname if you give it to yourself, is it?”

Once they were outside, Ruth relaxed a little bit. “Is he always like that?” Jenny asked.

“Didn’t use to be,” she sighed, “but he’s ramped it up a bit in the last few weeks.”

“Think he’s got a corkboard in the back with photos and string?”

“It’s completely possible,” she agreed.

“Today’s your birthday?”

Ruth grinned. “Forty-four.”

“Happy birthday!” Jenny exclaimed. “Hmm… still didn’t buy you a coffee, though.”

“Getting to take someone on a tour on a Monday morning is practically a birthday present in itself. Speaking of which: ready to begin?”

Jenny beamed. “Allons-y!”

* * *

Harry dragged himself out of bed and was buttoning his shirt when he heard his phone beep.

The text message contained the address of a cafe.

 _The owner’s a bit disagreeable but it’s quiet and the chairs look comfortable,_ Jenny added.

He checked its location on a map. _It’s a twenty minute walk from here,_ he complained.

 _But almost all of it is along the canal,_ she replied. _Which is lovely AND there are swans. Or at least one swan._

She sent another text message a moment later: _Ruth says his name is Reggie. The swan, I mean. Reggie’s the swan, Ruth is my tour guide. It’s her birthday today!_

Harry smiled. She seemed to be having a good time.

 _I’ll go check out this Vaguely Disagreeable Coffee Shop of yours,_ he texted. _See you at 1?_

 _Better make it 2,_ she responded. _Ruth says the Cathedral might take awhile. Kisses!_

Much to Harry’s annoyance, Jenny turned out to be right about the walk being pleasant.

Her coffee recommendation was also rather good. The cafe fit his usual criteria for the sort of place he liked to hunker down in when he wanted to get some work done: quiet, not crowded, with comfy chairs, free WiFi, and a staff who didn’t seem like they were in the mood to chat.

However, after a few hours of peace (quite a few more hours than Harry had planned, he realised guiltily), the mood abruptly changed when another customer came in: an almost aggressively nondescript man who had come in to pick up a cake. 

“Oh, got it right here,” the proprietor said, unexpectedly snide, as he dropped the cake box down on the counter. “A special birthday message to her.”

“What is the matter with you?” the customer demanded after opening the lid. “Why don’t you let it go?”

Curious, Harry headed to the counter under the guise of getting a refill and took a look at the apparently offensive cake. It was definitely an ugly attempt at baking, but even uglier was the message written in green icing: “You Can Do Better.”

_Yikes._

“You want to take this outside?” the proprietor growled.

The man just groaned wearily, which was understandable in Harry’s opinion, since the baker looked about as threatening as a houseplant. “Stop asking me that every time I come in here for a latte.”

“Not a good strategy for keeping customers,” Harry pointed out. “At least fight him in here; he might want a drink after wiping the floor with you.”

“Stay out of this,” the proprietor warned.

Harry looked down at the cake again. “I’m guessing that wasn’t a message for you?” he asked the man in front of him.

“It’s my wife’s birthday,” he said. “Allan here’s a bit sweet on her, and decided that the best way to express that is to repeatedly accuse me of being an undercover terrorist or something.” He sneered at Allan. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about that stalker file you’ve put together.”

“I’ll have you know that I showed that dossier to Ruth this morning and she was _very_ interested in its contents,” Allan snapped back.

“I bet she was,” the man said with a snort of derision. “Guess I’ll have to swing by Tesco for a cake instead. Probably should have done that in the first place.”

“He’s got a point: that’s not going to win any _Bake-Off_ competitions,” Harry couldn’t help snarking.

“Can I help you?” Allan said, annoyed.

“I don’t think so,” Harry said. “I was going to get another cup of coffee, but it turns out that I don’t really like the taste.” He placed his mug upside down on the counter; although it didn’t have much coffee left in it, it did have enough to spill over the edge of the counter. It was petty, but so was the cake.

He followed the other man outside, just in time to hear him mutter to himself: “Humans.”

“Tell me about it,” Harry agreed, deciding not to address the inherent weirdness in what he had just heard. “I don’t say this lightly, but that guy was a prick.”

“Don’t be surprised if he starts a dossier on you too,” he replied.

Harry shrugged. “I’m just visiting for a few days; I think my reputation will survive.” He thought back to what he had overheard. “Your wife’s name is Ruth?”

To his surprise, the man looked wary. “Yes.”

“I think she might be showing my wife around Gloucester Cathedral right now.”

The man smiled fondly. “Ruth must be thrilled. Not many people are interested in guided tours on a Monday.”

“‘Not many people’ is a pretty accurate description of Jenny.” He offered his hand. “Harry Jones.”

The man didn’t take it. “Lee Clayton.” The wariness had returned to his stance and expression.

Harry decided to change the subject. “Why do you keep going back to that cafe if the owner obviously spits in your latte every time?”

Lee shrugged. “Ruth goes there. I follow her lead.”

“And I take it she’s one of those infuriating people who sees the best in everyone?”

He made a soft noise of amusement, though still looked guarded. “Yeah, that’s Ruth. She’s extroverted enough for the both of us.”

Harry really didn’t know what to make of this man, which was going to be a problem since it meant that Lee was now a puzzle, and it was very difficult for Harry to walk by a puzzle without being compelled to solve it by any means necessary.

“Say,” he began hesitantly, as though Lee might run away if he phrased it wrong, “Jenny and I were going to get lunch—well, I suppose it’s supper now—after she got back from her tour. Would you and Ruth be interested in—”

He was interrupted by a strange metallic shriek and a flash of blue light across the road. 

When the flash faded, eight… figures stood in its place.

Harry did his best to figure out what they were (Puzzle Mode activated, he supposed): humanoid-ish, over two meters tall, dressed in some kind of uniform, talking in a guttural language that didn’t sound like anything he’d heard before, and—most distressingly—carrying very large guns that did not look like they were from this planet and time.

Next to him, Lee had taken cover behind a nearby parked car. At first, Harry assumed that it was due to fear of the unknown… until he joined Lee in his hiding spot and realised that he didn’t seem at all surprised by the appearance of… whatever that was.

Lee definitely knew what they were and possibly knew why they were here.

But he didn’t seem inclined to explain, so Harry decided to state the obvious: “Those are aliens.”

Lee’s suspicious look was answer enough. “How do you know that they’re aliens?” he demanded.

Harry gestured at them. “They’re bipedal giants dressed in black leather. They’re either aliens or very committed cosplayers.”

“Committed what?”

“So committed, in fact, that they can _teleport,”_ Harry said, rolling his eyes. “And if they’re—”

He was interrupted again, this time by a sound that caused his stomach to twist in fear: the firing of an energy weapon.

It came from the general direction of Gloucester Cathedral.

Simultaneously, Harry said “Jenny,” Lee said “Ruth,” and both men pulled out their mobile phones.

* * *

“And up ahead,” Ruth announced, “there’s a stained glass window that includes the first recorded evidence of golf.”

“Take that, Scotland,” Jenny remarked. She wasn’t entirely sure where the time had gone, because suddenly it was late afternoon and she was supposed to have met up with Harry hours ago… although he hadn’t messaged her either (in all likelihood, he was too engrossed in his work to notice the time), so she supposed she could stay for a bit longer.

She and Ruth had spent the majority of the tour discussing history and mostly going off on tangents of speculation about the possible details of events, the most recent discussion being the death of William II, who had been killed by an arrow on a hunting trip in 1100. 

“I mean, it’s _easy_ to blame Walter Tirel,” Ruth said, “but what I found interesting was that they left the body in the forest after he’d been killed.”

“If he was only wounded, he might have been able to identify his attackers,” Jenny pointed out. “Maybe he wasn’t dead yet.”

“Or _couldn’t_ die,” she countered, struggling to keep a straight face. “Wooden arrows, might be vampires.”

“Well, then you definitely don’t leave the body abandoned,” Jenny replied. “You cut off the head and _then_ clear off.”

“Had a lot of experience with vampires, then?” Ruth asked.

Jenny pretended to look embarrassed. “Well, this is a bit awkward to bring up while we’re on consecrated ground, but…”

“Aha, that’s the solution, then!” Ruth exclaimed. “You were _there_ at the time! The murderer of the vampire William II, uncovered at last!”

At that point, the “discussion” ended in giggles.

“This was brilliant,” Jenny said, sitting down on the steps to the High Altar to rest her feet. “Is there some website I could sing your praises on?”

“Haven’t bothered much with websites,” Ruth admitted. “I prefer to rely on my charm to get customers.” She sighed. “Though people walk right on by me like I’m not even there sometimes. Like I’m camouflaged really well.”

For some reason, Jenny was reminded of the Doctor’s explanation for why his TARDIS looked like a police box. “Like you’ve got some kind of chameleon circuit,” she said with a fond smile.

“A what?” There was a sudden flash of what Jenny could have sworn was suspicion in Ruth’s eyes… but before she could be entirely sure, it vanished again.

“It’s nothing,” Jenny said hastily. “Say, Harry and I are going to meet up for lunch—well, I suppose it’s supper now—would you be interested in…” She trailed off. “Hang on, what’s that noise outside?”

It took her a few seconds to stand back up, which meant that Ruth had already made it to the Cathedral doors by the time Jenny caught up with her.

“What are those?” Ruth gasped, astonished.

Out on the green, Jenny could see seven—no, eight—enormous individuals dressed in black with their heads covered under some kind of helmet. They had fanned out around the area, approaching every human and demanding that they do… something. Jenny couldn’t figure out exactly what they wanted, but the way that they moved reminded her of something… 

It clicked. “They’re law enforcement,” she said quietly.

“What are they doing here? What police officers dress like _that?”_

Ruth’s question was quickly answered when one of the figures removed its helmet, revealing a face that looked quite a lot like a rhinoceros.

“They’re aliens,” Jenny whispered. “Some kind of intergalactic security force, which means they’re probably looking for another alien here. But why are they—”

“Oh no…” Ruth breathed.

In the center of the green, a familiar figure was arguing with the rhinoforms: the old woman who had been knitting on the bench that morning. There was a small flash, and the knitting needles and scarf vanished from her hands, which seemed to upset her even more, and when the alien took a step towards her, the old woman turned and ran— 

And was instantly vaporised.

“Oh my god,” Ruth cried. “They killed her… they _killed her.”_

Jenny felt her system flooding with adrenaline, which fortunately manifested in a sudden need to act. “We need to get out of here before they see us.”

Ruth was still frozen in place. Jenny tugged on the sleeve of her jacket. “Ruth, come on! Do you know of a way out of the Cathedral that won’t be obvious?”

After a moment, she returned to her senses. “Yes, there are a few ways out near the school.”

“Think we could sneak past them?”

“We’d be out in the open for some of it. We’ll have to move fast to stay out of sight.”

Jenny sighed. “Moving fast isn’t exactly my strong suit right now. If they catch up with us, it’ll look really bad.”

“Do you think they might give you a pass, given that you’re…” Ruth gestured in the direction of Jenny’s midsection.

She shook her head. “They just shot an old woman for knitting a scarf at them. I think me eating for two isn’t going to make much of a difference.”

“Marcia,” Ruth said sharply. “Her name was Marcia.”

Jenny winced. “I’m sorry. She seemed like a good person.”

“She was.”

They watched the aliens accost more people on the green.

“They’re bullies,” Ruth spat. “I hate bullies.”

“Me too,” Jenny said, feeling something building in the back of her mind: something larger than herself, almost feral, snarling at her to _do something._

But there was something _else_ inside of her, which decided to use the opportunity to kick her _extremely hard._ Jenny stifled a curse. “All right, all right, message received,” she hissed at her stomach. “Regroup, then fight.”

She jumped at the unexpected sound of her mobile ringing. Next to her, Ruth was startled by the same noise from her own phone.

“Harry?” Jenny said as she answered the call.

“Are you all right?” he asked, sounding not quite frantic yet, but definitely moving in that direction.

“Depends on your definition of ‘all right.’ There are some very intimidating rhino cops interrogating everyone outside—Harry, they _shot_ someone for running away. We were inside the Cathedral when they arrived and they don’t seem to know we’re in here.”

“Rhinos?” Harry sounded a bit confused.

“They’re aliens.”

“I know they’re _aliens,_ but the ones near us have their helmets on. Rhinos… that’s a bit weird.”

“Just like old times,” she said with a smile. “Weird aliens and mortal peril.”

“Is Ruth with you?”

Jenny turned to look at her companion, who had stopped speaking and turned to look at Jenny herself. “Yes,” they said in unison.

“Good,” Harry said. “I’m here with her husband, Lee.”

“Really?” Once again, Jenny heard Ruth saying the same thing.

“Stay where you are. Don't try to run—”

“Big emphasis on ‘try’ at the moment,” she sighed.

“We’re going to come pick you up, we just have to get to a car first.” He addressed someone on his end of the line—Lee, presumably: “How far away is your place?”

After a pause, she heard Harry again. “You’re kidding.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Our Airbnb is in the same apartment block as their flat.”

“Today is just full of coincidences, isn’t it?” Jenny said with a laugh, though she had the nagging suspicion that none of this was a coincidence. “All right, we’ll sit tight until you get here.”

“We’ll hide inside a tomb if we have to,” Ruth told Lee.

“We’ll cloister ourselves,” she and Jenny both joked simultaneously.

_Okay, this is starting to get a bit spooky._

“Text me when you’re getting close,” Jenny ordered her husband.

“I will. I love you,” Harry whispered.

“I love you too,” she said. “Now get moving.”

“Just like old times,” he replied. “See you soon.”

* * *

What had been a twenty-minute walk that morning now took over an hour as Harry and Lee made their way back to the apartment block without being seen by the aliens.

From a distance, Harry spotted one of them without its helmet. “Rhinos,” he murmured. “Of all the forms they could take… _rhinos.”_

“You should hear what they think about the ones on Earth,” Lee remarked.

“And you have?”

“Have what?”

“Heard what they think about the rhinoceroses on Earth.”

“No,” Lee said quickly. “It was a joke.”

 _Sure it was._ Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes. “So what’s the plan for when we get there?”

“When we get there, _I_ will be packing my things, finding Ruth, and then leaving as quickly as possible. What _you_ decide to do isn’t something I care about, unless it interferes with what _I’m_ doing.”

Harry didn’t think it was possible for a person to get _more_ antisocial, but Lee was really exceeding expectations.

_Who is he really?_

Lee’s posture and movements implied either military or ex-military—probably the latter, given that he was apparently living a quiet life in Gloucester. 

_Saving the world one week, saving empty grocery bags the next._

_But which world?_

The Claytons’ flat didn’t look too different from the one that Harry and Jenny were renting, which was not exactly a reassuring thing.

“How long have you lived here?” Harry asked.

Lee was retrieving a pair of suitcases from the closet; at the sound of Harry’s question, his spine stiffened. “Late 1999.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” Other than a few dishes in the sink and a jacket draped over a chair, there weren’t a lot of personal touches or anything that indicated that someone had lived there for even a few months, let alone twenty years.

Something was definitely _off…_ but it was also nagging at Harry in a way that was oddly familiar.

Lee turned and glared at him. “Why are you still here?”

“We’ve got a moment to breathe,” Harry said, “so you might as well explain what’s really going on here.”

“There’s nothing ‘going on.’” He started going through the drawers in the bedroom and throwing clothes into one of the suitcases.

Harry couldn’t help snickering a little. “I’m beginning to see why people find you suspicious: practically everything about you screams _‘I have a dark secret.’”_

“What’s _your_ theory, then?” he sneered. “Terrorist? Murderer?”

“Alien, actually.”

Lee laughed, but it was obviously forced.

“Come on,” Harry said, annoyed, “I’ve known you for barely an hour and even I can tell that you’re not from here.”

“I’m from Stroud.”

Harry snorted with laughter. “You’re not from Stroud. You’re not even from _Earth._ Muttering ‘humans’ when you were irritated was a bit of a giveaway.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Are you the one they’re looking for?” Harry asked bluntly.

Surprisingly, Lee’s reply was automatic: “No.”

But there was something else in his expression… his poker face could use some work. “You know who they are, though.”

This time, there was a hesitant pause before Lee answered “No.”

“You’re protecting them. You’re covering for them.”

It was Ruth—it _had_ to be Ruth. Every time Harry mentioned her, Lee went on high alert. Besides, it wasn’t as though Lee seemed close with anyone else.

“It’s none of your business,” Lee snapped. “Get out.”

“I’m trying to _help,”_ he countered. “You’re reacting, not thinking clearly. I don’t have all the information here, but if aliens are here in Gloucester they must have tracked you here somehow.” He started pacing back and forth. “Which means you must have done something to tip them off. Is there anything that they could have picked up on a scan? Something not from this time or place?” 

Lee ignored his questions and started rummaging through the drawer of the bedside table. “Where are the bloody car keys?” he grumbled.

“I’m parked down the road,” Harry offered. “I just have to grab the keys from our flat.” He couldn’t resist adding, however: “And I actually know where mine _are.”_

“I already told you: this is none of your concern.”

“At this point it might as _well_ be, since we’re heading in the same direction for the exact same purpose.” He risked moving closer. “Look, I know you’re worried about her, but I won’t give her away. I’ll help you get her out of here.”

Harry probably should have expected what happened next: Lee grabbed him by the collar and pinned him against the nearest wall. “Whatever you _think_ you know—” he hissed, but was interrupted by a noise from outside:

 _“Fugitive house unit located,”_ a gravelly amplified voice announced. _“Prepare isolator.”_

* * *

Sitting around was beginning to make Jenny antsy, and despite her better judgment saying that she should conserve her energy while she had the chance, she was pacing back and forth in the Nave.

“All right,” she thought out loud, “what do we know? They’ve got weapons, they can teleport, and they’re searching for something—or some _one._ They’re either brutal enough or desperate enough to kill anyone who resists, and the uniforms suggest that they’re organised, which implies a leader. Teleporters have a limited range, so there must be a ship nearby, probably in orbit—oh, I wish I had a telescope handy—although we don’t have an easy way to communicate with them—” She snapped her fingers as an idea occurred to her: “Maybe I could find a way to boost the range on my mobile…”

Ruth, who had been watching her ramble on in silence, finally interrupted: “You know about aliens.”

Jenny couldn’t help bragging a little. “Used to travel with one. He was better looking than this lot—well, a tiny bit, though just as grumpy—anyway, he had a ship that could move through time and space. Harry and I travelled with him for a while before we got married.”

“Then what happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“You were in space with an alien and then you just… went back to Yorkshire?” Ruth looked incredulous. “Why would you ever want to stop?”

Jenny blinked. It hadn’t occurred to her before how odd that actually was. In her head, it was straightforward enough: _I used to travel with the Doctor and then I stopped._

But _why_ did they stop?

There was a tiny gap in her memory about their final trip together, where something had gone awry for reasons she couldn’t recall.

_I used to travel with the Doctor and then I stopped._

Missy had been there too, and while Jenny didn’t remember her doing anything wrong, there was this sense she couldn’t shake that Missy told them something awful, and whatever it was had been enough to make Jenny and Harry not want to travel with the Doctor anymore.

_I used to travel with the Doctor and then I stopped._

And besides, they were so happy in Leeds that they didn’t really miss it all that often. Though now that she considered it, that was a bit odd as well—

“You all right?” Ruth asked, jarring her out of her thoughts.

“Yes,” Jenny assured her. “Just got lost in old memories. It really was a brilliant time, so exciting, but things with Harry had progressed to the point where we wanted something a little more stable… we always meant to start travelling again, but then Suzi was born and risking our lives wasn’t an option anymore… and in the meantime we had fallen out of touch with the Doctor… so that was the end of our life in the TARDIS.”

“The what?”

“The TARDIS. That was the Doctor’s ship—the Doctor was the alien that we travelled with.” She smiled at the memory of that ridiculous Scotsman and his odd blue box. “It was a fascinating ship: its interior was dimensionally transcendental, so it could travel relative to any point in time and space, _and,_ get this, it was bigger on the inside. I’m still trying to figure out how that worked, but all I’ve managed to do so far is make the inside of my rubbish bins a little bigger. Which isn’t a _bad_ thing, though it meant that we had to find bigger bin liners so—”

Ruth’s expression was light-years away. “Are _you_ all right?” Jenny asked, feeling a little guilty. She supposed that it _was_ a lot to take in all at once.

_Is that what I looked like a few minutes ago?_

“I know a place we can go,” Ruth whispered, still looking lost inside her own head. “We’ll need to drive, though.”

“And your car’s back at your flat, right?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm, that’ll be a problem.” Jenny checked her phone. “And still no word from the others. We’ll have to get out on our own. You said you knew of a way out?”

The question seemed to bring Ruth back to the present moment (Jenny could sympathise: answering questions and solving problems tended to be her way of steadying herself too). “We can leave through the Lady Chapel,” she said. “There’s an area nearby covered with trees that should hide most of our movements until we get to Pitt Street.”

“Allons-y," Jenny murmured as she followed Ruth through the Cathedral.

“You like saying that, don’t you?”

“It’s fun to say,” she explained, “though I’ve been told my pronunciation is atrocious.”

Luck was on their side when they left the Chapel—there were no rhinoforms in sight.

“Looks like they just jammed the mobile networks,” Jenny whispered while making her way through the trees. “My phone isn’t getting any reception… and I once used it to order takeaway from 1814.”

“Is that a restaurant?”

“I meant the year 1814. I was a bit late picking it up when I got back to the present day, though… about a week late, actually.” 

“You used some kind of alien technology, then?”

“The Doctor gave our phones a little upgrade—turns out that he likes sending selfies from halfway across the galaxy, which is hell on any data plan.”

Thinking about that period in her life, however, reminded her that Harry was probably in just as much danger as she was at the moment, and there was no way for her to find out what had happened.

They reached the edge of the Cathedral grounds and were now on the other side of the fence from the road.

“Looks like there’s a patrol,” Ruth said, peering through the bars. “Just the one, though… if we wait till they pass by we should be able to flag down one of the cars driving through.”

“I might need a hand climbing over this,” Jenny noted while they waited.

Ruth eyed the height of the fence and shook her head. “There’s a gate nearby. It’s more exposed but it’ll draw less attention than me trying to give you a leg up.”

Jenny knew that it was probably the shock and grief at her friend’s death, but something about Ruth had gone eerily cold since they started planning their escape.

At last, the sound of heavy footsteps marching in unison faded away.

“Coast is clear,” Ruth said as they made their way out onto the road. “Now what?”

Jenny looked around for a passing vehicle… but then realised that they had another option. 

“Come on,” she told Ruth, heading for the nearest parked car.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding us a ride,” Jenny said, locating the sonic screwdriver in her coat pocket.

“There’s another patrol coming,” Ruth said sharply. “I think they spotted us. We need to run.”

It took a few moments of work—though the adrenaline helped matters along—and then the car doors unlocked with a click.

“Can’t really run,” Jenny said, opening the passenger-side door. _“Can_ be extremely irresponsible.”

“What is that?” Ruth asked, going around to the driver’s side.

“Sonic screwdriver. Very useful tool for petty theft and other misdemeanors.” She pointed it at the ignition and did her best to concentrate. “Come on, come on…”

“They’re getting closer.”

“I know, I know, _shush,”_ Jenny muttered. At last, the engine roared to life.

“Alien tech?” Ruth asked.

“Alien tech,” Jenny confirmed, then went to work trying to get her seat belt fastened.

But the rhinoforms were too close now: one of them aimed its weapon at Ruth, who still hadn’t gotten in the car. “You will be catalogued.”

“You killed Marcia,” she said, her voice shaking with what might have been fear or fury. “I’m not giving you anything.”

“Ruth, think about what you’re doing,” Jenny warned, but she was also busy trying to figure out how to stop the aliens before Ruth got hurt. Maybe she could use the sonic screwdriver to overload their weapons...

“I hate bullies,” Ruth hissed—and then moved.

Her arm reached out to the alien in front of her, grabbing its arm and twisting it around behind its back until it dropped the weapon it was carrying, which Ruth quickly picked up.

“That’s it,” she snapped at the other alien while holding the first one at gunpoint. “Back up or Daddy Rhinoform gets it.”

“What are you doing?” Jenny asked, horrified at the sudden change. It was like she had become a totally different person.

“You know the thing about bullies?” Ruth said, her eyes still locked on the one in front of her. “There’s always a weak spot.”

She moved again, just as quickly as she had before, and grabbed the alien’s horn. It broke off with a harsh _snap._ She then reached for the communication device on its armour. 

_“Bo ko fo jo to!”_ Ruth snarled, and activated the device. 

The aliens vanished in a flash of blue light.

Jenny stared at her, wide-eyed. “How did you do that?” she asked faintly.

“I don’t know,” Ruth said, dropping the weapon as though it had burned her fingers. She was shaking so violently that she looked like she was about to pass out. “It was like… like instinct. My hands just moved on their own. But that…” She shook her head. “That wasn’t me. I know myself… that wasn’t me…”

Something about her words sounded so familiar for reasons that Jenny couldn’t explain, but there wasn’t time. “There will be others along soon,” she said urgently. “We need to go. Can you still drive?”

“I… I don’t know…”

All Jenny wanted to do was wrap the woman in a hug (which wasn’t an impulse that she had very often), but there wasn’t time for that either. “You’re the one who knows where we need to go,” she said gently. “I’m sorry Ruth, I’m so sorry, but you’re the only hope we’ve got of getting out of here.”

She braced herself for the return of that righteous fury, or even the return of the iciness Ruth had shown before, but the person who got into the car with Jenny was a very frightened version of the woman she had befriended only that morning.

As much as it pained her to see her friend like this, Jenny couldn’t help feeling relieved to have her back.

Ruth put the car into gear and headed down the road.

“So where are we headed?” Jenny asked softly.

“The coast,” she replied, speeding past a group of rhinoforms as fast as the car (which wasn’t especially speedy) could go. “There’s a lighthouse there… it’s where I grew up.”

Jenny felt her own face light up in excitement. “You grew up in a lighthouse?”

Ruth didn’t share her enthusiasm; in fact, that distant expression had returned. “I grew up raised by two people who chose to live in a disused lighthouse. That tells you how good they were with people.”

“Not like you, though,” Jenny replied. “I couldn’t imagine you being happy all by yourself.”

“Which is why I left.”

“When was that, by the way?”

“I moved to Gloucester in 1999. Mid-December.” For the first time since they were back in the Cathedral, Ruth made a noise that was very nearly a laugh. “It’s funny, in a way… it was like my life wasn’t real until I moved to Gloucester.”

Jenny’s eyes widened. She knew those words… how did she know those words…?

_The Doctor._

She remembered: she and Harry stopped travelling with the Doctor because they discovered that Jenny _was_ the Doctor, but her memories and biology had been altered to make her believe that she was human. Not just that, but Harry was really another Time Lord called the Master (though Jenny had first known them as Missy), the Doctor’s extremely violent… well, “frenemy” might be putting it a bit mildly—and he was responsible for the destruction of their homeworld.

And their hearts had broken a thousand times… until they went back to the Chameleon Arch and decided to become Harry and Jenny again for good.

_I used to be the Doctor and then I stopped._

She wondered who Ruth used to be… and what had happened to make _her_ stop.

* * *

“I’m counting eight outside,” Harry said. “They’re setting up some kind of cannon.”

“Temporal isolator,” Lee hissed as he joined him at the window.

“I assume that getting out of here is going to be an issue, then?”

“Even if we manage it, they’ll follow us to the Cathedral and they’ll discover Ruth.” He shivered. “I’ve got to tell her.” He began typing out a message on his phone.

“Tell her what?” Harry asked. He managed to peek over Lee’s shoulder and got a glimpse of the text: _Follow the light. Break—_

“This is none of your business,” Lee snapped, shoving him back a few steps. After a moment, during which Harry assumed he had finished the message and hit send, his phone beeped with an error message.

Harry checked his own phone: zero bars, which was very odd considering what the Doctor had done to it. “I can’t connect either.” 

“No… no no no…” Lee said, his eyes widening with panic. The phone beeped again. “They’ve increased their communications jamming,” he said, then swore in a language Harry didn’t recognise. “I can’t tell Ruth to—” He stumbled over his words. “—to leave without us.”

“We’ve got bigger problems at the moment,” Harry said, looking out the window. “There are only six of them outside now.”

As if on cue, something smashed through the door to the flat, sending it flying off its hinges.

“This property is now under Judoon jurisdiction,” said the first rhino person to enter the room. “All occupants must surrender immediately.”

“Well, I guess we’ve got a name now,” Harry muttered.

“Chronotelluric alloy detected,” the other Judoon announced. “Evidence of non-Earth technology present. Suspects will be detained pending investigation.”

“There’s no fugitive here,” Harry insisted. “You’re wasting your time.”

“You will be catalogued.”

Harry stepped in front of Lee, hoping that by being the first to be scanned he could delay things long enough for the other man to think of a method of escape— 

He felt a hand briefly grip the back of his neck and then release.

“I’m sorry,” Lee said in a low whisper. “I’m so sorry… but I made a promise.” He raised his voice and pointed at Harry. “It’s him. He’s the fugitive.”

“Are you _serious?”_ Harry shouted at him, surprising himself by feeling more incredulous than afraid.

“It’s just olfactory misdirection,” Lee hissed. “The Judoon will do a more thorough scan on the ship, realise that you’re human, and then bring you back here. Don’t fight them and you’ll be fine.”

Harry turned back to face the pair of Judoon. “He’s lying, I’m not—”

But those rhino people talked over him. “Biological shielding detected. Suspect will be taken into custody for interrogation and identification.” They locked a pair of handcuffs around Harry’s wrists.

“I’m sorry,” Lee whispered again. “I just need to buy some time to—”

“Go to hell,” he snapped. “I’m—”

There was a flash of light, and then Harry was somewhere else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeep, so a few comments brought to my attention that I inadvertently implied that Lee is another incarnation of the Master. It's an interesting theory in canon, but not one that I'm using in this story. Though the possibility will be discussed in the next chapter!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: This chapter contains a brief discussion about the risks of a miscarriage.

Space. It was definitely space, which wasn’t surprising, considering that he was talking to anthropomorphic rhinos with energy weapons.

He was on a ship, probably on the bridge. It smelled a little like old shoes.

_I’ve been arrested by space coppers._

There was someone there, however, who obviously wasn’t a Judoon and, judging by her expression, was probably the person in charge.

“And who is this?” she asked the Judoon that had apprehended him. She was a youngish human (or human-looking, at least) with a long coat, heavily-lined eyes, and what Harry could only describe as a “weird hat.”

“Suspected fugitive,” one of the Judoon replied. “Biological shielding detected. Decryption needed to complete identification. All units have been recalled to the ship for further instructions.”

She sighed impatiently. “You idiots. This isn’t the Doctor.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “The _Doctor?”_

 _Why the hell would the Doctor be a fugitive from—wait, no, that’s actually not surprising at all. Of_ _course_ _he’s gotten into some kind of trouble._

The woman was now examining him closely. “But you’re definitely hiding _something,”_ she said, then addressed the Judoon again. “What kind of bio-shielding?”

“Commander Gat, sensors detect Gallifreyan technology,” one of them reported. A few meters away, Harry could see a Judoon typing (or whatever they did with those hoof/hand hybrids) on a computer console while staring directly at him.

“My name is Harry Jones,” he said, annoyed at how his voice was shaking. “There’s been a mistake, I’m just a human—” But as he spoke, something at the back of his mind was beginning to shiver.

“Obviously you aren’t,” the woman said condescendingly. “But we’ll find out for sure in a moment, won’t we?”

“You’ve got to listen to me—”

“Decryption complete,” the Judoon at the computer announced.

Harry felt the air escape his lungs— 

* * *

—and he inhaled golden fire.

“Wow!” was all the Master could say at first. That initial _rush_ of return always made him a little dizzy. “Ooo, back _again._ Nice to—wait.” He frowned. “Singular vascular system. One brainstem. And the _smell…_ ” He sniffed the air with a grimace. “Ugh. Still human, at least on a cellular level.”

Judoon body language was always so _funny_ to read: like watching a weather vane made of ground beef. Judging by the way they were all leaning back ever so slightly, he’d given them a bit of a fright.

“Surprised that you couldn’t decrypt it fully?” He smirked. “Don’t feel bad—you’re dealing with one of Gallifrey’s best and brightest. My Chameleon Arch programming is almost impenetrable—and really, you only got this far because we’re currently _surrounded_ by Gallifreyan technology… courtesy of _you,_ Smoky Eyes.”

Those particular eyes weren’t afraid, but they were certainly wary. “You’re a Time Lord,” she said tightly.

“Only on weekends, love. Or when little Harry Jones is in the kind of sticky situation where it helps to have a murderous bastard behind the wheel.”

_Time Lords… hmm, I must have missed a few stragglers…_

“Who are you?” Smoky Eyes—Gat—asked.

For a moment, the Master was actually a little insulted. But then he looked around the bridge again, and the pieces began to fall into place.

He examined his captor a little more closely. Gallifrey never really had what one could call “fashion trends”—or, indeed, any fashion at all—but the garments she was dressed in seemed very out of date, like he had seen them in historical images… 

_Such as when I was watching the Citadel’s founding in the Matrix._

Combined with the technology he could see… this Gallifreyan was from far in the past… long before he was born.

_Which means that she’s probably here because…_

“Oh, I see,” he said, “you’re looking for the Doctor—”

 _Because it’s_ _always_ _the bloody Doctor—_

“—but your sensors got a bit muddled, didn’t they? You caught a whiff of the tech but couldn’t verify it from this, if I can offer my opinion, _dismal_ little ship, so you had to send down the galaxy’s most _subtle_ investigators to check it out.” He gave the Judoon a pointed look.

“I won’t ask you again,” the Time Lady said, her face hardening into a very grumpy expression. “Who are you?”

“I hate saying this, I _really_ hate saying this,” the Master said with a sigh, “but my name isn’t something that matters at the moment, because I’m from far in your future. You wouldn’t recognise it. Where I’m from—well, _when,_ more accurately—there isn’t even a Division running around anymore.”

_No one running around at all, in fact._

About a dozen questions flashed in the woman’s eyes, and he had to try _so_ hard not to giggle at how silly she looked at the moment. 

“Then how would you know about the Division?” she inquired, still amusingly pop-eyed.

He grinned. “Let’s just say that I’m an ardent scholar of history.”

Her expression went back to being stern. “There is no record of the Division.”

He rolled his eyes in annoyance. _“Fine,_ if you’re so hellbent on ruining the mystique: I hacked my way into the Matrix and found some _very_ interesting information—”

_(—lies lies lies lies lies lies lies they lied to us they lied to me they lied they lied they lied—)_

He felt himself tremble with rage. Oh, that was inconvenient. This was supposed to be the time for talking. The killing bit would come later.

“—such as the founding of the Division and all the little missions you sent your favourite _agent_ on,” he spat.

_(—her her her it’s always her why is it always her every single time—)_

He forced his expression into a grin. “And you’re here to collect that missing agent,” he concluded. “Well, this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been punished for the Doctor’s sins.”

_And apparently she’s used the Chameleon Arch again… Well done, Harry, your little hunch was correct._

“Tell us where she is,” Gat ordered, apparently trying to sound conciliatory, “and perhaps we can see our way to letting you go.”

“With a slap on the wrist and a memory wipe? I’m going to have to decline that offer,” the Master tutted at her. “For someone like me, breaking out of a Judoon prison ship is like cleaning out the gutters: messy, time-consuming, and unpleasant, but not particularly _difficult._ The only reason I’m even still here is because I am absolutely _flabbergasted_ by that thing on your head. Is there a _name_ for that?”

“Prepare him for interrogation,” she snapped at the Judoon standing on either side of him.

_Sufficiently pushed her buttons. Finally, something interesting._

“Ooo, what’s it going to be?” he asked brightly. “I love the little _tickling_ sensation you get from a neural probe—though, if you’re taking requests, I prefer lying down to standing—it makes my knees go rubbery in a very embarrassing way—” Heavy Judoon fingers clamped around his upper arms. “Surprisingly dexterous hooves you’ve got there,” he remarked. “Do any of you play piano?”

“Unless your incessant chatter includes answers to our questions, I would advise saving your breath,” Gat said drily.

“Really?” His blood was humming with the rush of danger which, combined with the fun of taking the body of Harry Jones out for a spin, was making him a bit talkative—well, _more_ talkative. “Because I thought all of that ‘chatter’ included quite a lot of useful information: that I have prior experience with Judoon custody enforcement protocol, that I must have spent time on 20th century Earth based on the local references I’m making, and that I’m well aware of your agency’s preference for mechanically-induced mental alteration—good luck with _that,_ by the way: I’m a genius with home field advantage and even _I_ can’t make sense of my mind most of the time. All you’ll manage to pull out of me with a neural probe is word salad, bad puns, and an excellent rhythm section.”

It was true that he sometimes had trouble keeping his thoughts straight… because at that very moment something was nagging at him, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

_Puzzle Mode activated. I suppose escaping will have to wait another few minutes._

“Well then,” Gat said in a voice that was mockingly sweet, “we’ll have to use less civilised methods to find out what you know.” She looked at the Judoon on his right side. “Hit him.”

The Master raised a hand to ward off the incoming blow, but was only able to briefly catch the hand holding the blaster that the Judoon swung at him.

An explosion of pain bloomed on the side of his head, enough to knock him to the ground once the other Judoon released her hold on his left arm.

“Sorry, couldn’t quite hear you,” he said through clenched teeth. “Mind saying that again?”

When the next attack came, he was ready: dropping his now-empty cuffs to the floor, the Master grabbed the weapon out of the Judoon’s hand, swiveled around quickly, and swung the barrel of the blaster at the other one’s face as hard as he could.

Judoon skulls were thick things, nearly impervious to damage—especially with the paltry human-level body strength he had available at the moment—and could even shake off a shot from anything further away than point blank range.

But, as with most species, the eyes were always a weak spot.

He drove the barrel of the blaster into the Judoon’s eye socket with a very satisfying squelching sound.

While his latest victim collapsed to her knees, he took the opportunity to grab the blaster off her belt and shoot the other one in the stomach. Not enough to be lethal—their skin was nearly as thick as their skulls—but enough that a beam that would have disintegrated most other species delivered a very nasty stomach wound.

A few Judoon—he counted about a dozen total on the bridge—aimed their weapons in his direction, but Gat held up a hand and shouted “Hold!”

The Master tossed the second blaster to the floor. “Now where were we?” he said, taking care to use the monocular Judoon as a shield. “I believe there were some threats and a few very rude questions, but things just got a bit complicated, didn’t they? By the way,” he warned them, resting his hand on the blaster currently keeping warm in the Judoon’s eye socket, “if any of you take even a _step_ in this direction, this lovely lady is going to suffer a very unfortunate mishap. Well… _another_ mishap, I suppose.”

That nagging sensation was still there, itching at him, so close to comprehension… 

“It’s funny, you know,” the Master said as he looked over the room, “because I’d have made a fantastic operative for your Division. Brilliant, efficient, ruthless, with none of the pesky ‘morals’ that hold the Doctor back. Perfect for upholding the polished little paradise that surrounds the rotting heart of Time Lord society.”

It was right in front of his face, hanging suspended like a penny tossed in the air… 

He laughed quietly. “But the timing just didn’t work out… and I suppose that I’ve never really played well with others. I still wonder, though…”

The penny dropped.

What followed in its wake was like a match approaching a puddle of fuel. “Reporting to Rassilon himself…” he said softly. “His own little black ops team, under the table, unknown and unaccountable to anyone else. Keeping his dark secrets and enacting his silent plans—like putting in a fail-safe in case Gallifrey got trapped behind a timelock: a beacon to guide them back… the rhythm of drums… over and over…” He was trembling again. “Meddling with the Untempered Schism itself… oh, of course it was you behind it. The mind of a child… easy to tamper with. Easy to break. Of _course_ it was you.”

He felt himself smiling… he was in that strange in-between place where the anger and the madness lived, where the slightest change in the wind could bring about laughter or blood.

“Whatever you think we’ve done,” Gat said, “you’re wrong. I serve for the glory of Gallifrey.”

The wind shifted and the mad laughter took over. “The _glory_ of _Gallifrey?”_ the Master cried. “Even if there were such a thing, it’s gone. All of it. Pulverized, burned, nuked…” He paused to savor those words on his tongue. “Our home, razed to the ground. Everyone killed… everything burned… and it’s all thanks to me.” 

“That’s not true,” she replied, but he could see the uncertainty in her expression.

He smirked. “You serve for the glory of ash and bone.”

That confession was always so enjoyable, though he still preferred the Doctor’s reaction.

“But that’s all in your future,” he continued. “It’s a lovely thing, sometimes, to know the future. Even better when the other person has no idea what’s coming.”

Out of the corner of his eye, the Master spotted one of the Judoon raise a weapon—

The noise that followed was not of a Time Lord—wait, no, _human_ for the moment—being disintegrated, but of a blaster firing inside the skull of a one-eyed Judoon.

“I did warn you,” the Master snapped. “I may be a compulsive liar about a great many things, but my threats are _always_ sincere.” He fired at the Judoon standing next to Gat. “And I’m sure I won’t need to warn you again.”

To her credit, the Time Lady didn’t even flinch as the Judoon next to her collapsed with a smoking hole gouged in his chest.

“Shouldn’t have given up your hostage,” she said with a nasty grin. 

“I can always make more,” he countered. Every weapon on the bridge was now aimed in his direction.

Too bad they had let him monologue for so long… and let him get within range of a Judoon personal teleportation device.

One flash later, and the Master was now about two meters away from his intended destination: the bridge controls.

“Ah well,” he sighed. “Close enough.”

Gat scoffed. “Really? _That_ was your brilliant idea?”

“No,” the Master said as the Judoon turned and fired. “This is.”

 _…make that_ _two_ _Judoon teleporters._

“Whoops, did I not mention this part?” he asked, watching the disintegrator bolts fizzling out against the force field he had created around himself—well, technically not a _real_ force field: he had modified the extra teleporter to produce a barrier of energy that would teleport anything that touched it to a random spot one deck below him. If his memory of Judoon ships was correct, these rhino brutes were unloading their weapons directly into the engine’s coolant system.

As long as he moved slowly, the field would follow him, but it did mean that he had to fill the time with more words.

_One of my specialties._

“Come on,” he called to Gat encouragingly, though he had to shout to be heard over the sound of the blasters—they must have assumed that they could overload the “force field” with enough firepower. “You must have more questions for me. A temporal intervention agent, getting the chance to talk to someone with knowledge of the future? Someone who just confessed to murdering all of our people? Probably some of them were your family. Maybe even you yourself—I didn’t bother with a roll call. At this point I’ve killed so many Time Lords that I’m almost bored by it. But not _too_ bored—I can be very creative.” 

“You’re lying,” she said. “Or possibly insane. I’m not sure which is the most likely.”

“Well, that’s part of the game with me,” the Master admitted. _“Is he lying or telling the truth? Is he bananas or merely eccentric? Is it both? Is it neither?_ Step right up and try your luck… you might even win a prize!” He finally reached the console, dropped his weapon, and got to work. “It’s not often that I get a chance to play around with an antique like this. There are so many holes in your systems that it’s a bit like Swiss cheese—which reminds me: you interrupted my dinner plans and now I’m all sorts of hangry.”

He examined the sensors a little more closely. “A Judoonese Talwak freighter flying with its beacons off… Ooo.” He raised his eyebrows. “A covert operation, off the books, which means…” He gave Gat a look of feigned astonishment. “...no one knows you’re here. And that’s _very_ good for me, because I’ve rambled on a bit more than I should have—I’m just too friendly for my own good sometimes—but that’s not going to matter in a moment. Want to guess why? Come on, guess.”

The only response was more bloody gunfire and a glare from Gat.

“No one? Well, time’s up: it’s because no one’s going to come looking for you if you vanish… so there’s nothing to stop me from killing you all.” He pressed a series of switches on the console and a Judoon voice announced the commencement of the ship’s self-destruct sequence.

“Head for the auxiliary bridge,” Gat ordered a trio of Judoon, who ran for the exit.

“Oh drat,” the Master said after they were out of earshot. “Did I not mention that I locked everyone out of the controls? Well, this is awkward, isn’t it?” He continued his work on the ship’s navigation system, setting a course, and then pulled out his mobile phone to find a message from Jenny with her current location.

She had made it out of Gloucester, which was a relief (mostly Harry’s relief). It would be a bit far to teleport back, but he could work around that.

He checked the navigation and nodded with satisfaction. “And here we are in interstellar space. You’d think it would be my favourite place—no jurisdiction, no laws at all, it’s like the Wild West out here—but you’d be wrong. I like knowing that there’s a record of my misbehaviour. It makes for very spicy nighttime reading. No, I brought us here because I knew it would drive all of you Judoon crazy to know that there’s no legal recourse for you after I kill you. But I’ll send your families some flowers, would that help? Oh,” he smirked at Gat. “I suppose that won’t be an option for you, would it? I’ll spit on their ashes, how about that?”

“You can’t destroy the ship _and_ escape,” Gat snapped. “Either you die along with us or we halt the self-destruct after you leave.”

He froze. “What do you mean? How could you halt it?”

A mocking grin spread across the Time Lady’s face. “Oh, you didn’t know? This ‘antique’ ship draws its power from all the other systems in order to complete the self-destruct process. You only have another sixty seconds before the teleportation systems are deactivated, which leaves another two minutes before the ship self-destructs. Once you’re gone, we can easily stop it.”

“Well, that’s a relief.” It had been so difficult keeping a straight face during all that. “I was worried I’d missed something _important._ See, while your trigger-happy coppers were busy unloading their arsenal in my general direction, all of those blasts were teleported down into the engines, providing _plenty_ of excess power to blow this ship to tiny pieces. All I have to do,” he explained, “is something that would use quite a lot of the ship’s resources… such as activating the long-range teleporter. Ooo…” He hovered his hand over the console. “Look at that: a big red button. I am _brilliant,_ aren’t I?”

“You’re bluffing,” Gat said, but she didn’t look quite as smug as she did before.

“Remember what I said before? My threats are always sincere.” He took one final look around the bridge: at the furious Judoon, at the outdated technology, and at the Division Commander who was one of the few beings left in the universe carrying around the little spark of regeneration ripped from the genes of a nameless child.

_Snuffing that spark out is going to be so satisfying._

_So is this:_

“In a way,” he began, “in so _many_ ways, come to think of it… all of this is your fault. Because, in spite of everything you did to keep the Doctor under control—the lies, the memory wipes, that lowly second childhood in the drylands—you let her have something that she should never have been allowed to have.”

“What?” Gat asked.

He gave her one last grin. “A friend.”

He put his hand over the button. “Kisses, everyone! Bye-bye!”

There was a flash of light, and then the Master was somewhere else. 

* * *

Ruth parked the car outside the lighthouse. The area around it was an expanse of sand dotted with pools of water, and beyond it was the sea. It was a bit cloudy out at the moment, but Jenny imagined that it would look wonderful in the sunlight.

This wasn’t the worst place to have grown up, she reflected, even though she strongly doubted that Ruth had lived here at all.

“Are we able to get inside?” Jenny asked, unstrapping her seatbelt and hauling herself out of the passenger’s side.

Ruth nodded, but that distant expression had grown even stronger. She hurried towards the lighthouse door. 

“Two more months, just two more months…” Jenny grumbled as she tried to keep up. Between the walking tour and the missed lunch and the fearing for her life, she felt like she was about to fall over and the car ride hadn’t done much to help restore her energy.

Nor did the fact that she spent the entire ride worrying about Harry and what might have happened to delay him. Once she was away from Gloucester, her mobile was able to connect to a network, but couldn't reach him by phone, so all she could do was send Harry a message with her coordinates and hope that he received it.

_Hmm… signs of soil erosion along the shoreline. Maybe there’s a way to make the grasses a little hardier… a more extensive root system, perhaps?_

_Focus!_

_Solve that mystery later. Solve the one in front of you now._

When Jenny finally made it inside the lighthouse and navigated around the furniture strewn haphazardly around the main room, she found Ruth staring at a small round object affixed to the wall: an emergency switch of some kind, covered by a piece of glass.

For some reason, Jenny could hear urgent whispers coming from that direction. 

Her old memories stirred again.

_In case of emergency… Looks like my hypothesis was correct._

“Break the glass,” she told Ruth. 

The woman turned to look at her, startled. It was as though she had forgotten Jenny was there. “What?”

“That’s why you’re here. This is the emergency. Break the glass.”

Jenny braced herself, trying to shut out the whispers, as Ruth smashed the switch with her elbow.

The air around her filled with golden fire.

By the time Jenny could see again, Ruth had already moved from where she was standing.

“Ruth?” Jenny called, knowing that whoever she was speaking to probably wasn’t Ruth anymore. “What happened?”

The person who returned to the main room still looked outwardly like Ruth, but had a very different light in her eyes… one which was strangely familiar.

She tossed Jenny an item that turned out to be some kind of energy rifle. “Hang onto this. I need to go change.”

_Who pauses in the middle of an emergency for a wardrobe change?_

Although, when “Ruth” returned, Jenny had to admit that it was mostly worth the wait—although the shirt she had on under the blue vest and frock coat was a bit… much.

“You’re probably a bit confused right now, so I should probably take it from the top,” “Ruth” said. “Hello, I’m the Doctor. I’m a traveller in space and time and—”

Jenny felt her jaw drop. “Doctor?”

“Yes: _the_ Doctor. I’m a—”

“Doctor, it’s Jenny!” she exclaimed. “Remember me? Harry’s here too, he’s going to be thrilled to see you—”

The Doctor looked a bit taken aback. “You know who I am?”

“Of course! Harry and I travelled with you back when you were at St Luke’s Univers—”

“Stop,” the Doctor interrupted urgently. “I don’t recognise you, which means you’re from my future. Don’t tell me any more than you have to.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Jenny protested. “When we met him, he didn’t recognise us either.”

The Doctor hissed through her front teeth. “Gat,” she said grimly.

“What?”

“Gat. I used to work for her—and it wasn’t a job that you could just quit. So I ran and hid here. But now she’s found me, and we need to be ready, and we’re not.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you don’t know who I am.”

The Doctor took the weapon back from her. “The Division keeps control over its agents by wiping their memories after crucial missions. Or as punishment. I guess I’ll be tangling with them for a little while longer.”

“So what, you’re going to go _shoot_ them?” Jenny demanded, indicating the gun. “That doesn’t sound like the Doctor I know—”

_(That doesn’t sound like the Doctor I was—)_

She had forgotten again. It kept coming back, though not consistently: the recollection that Jenny used to _be_ the Doctor, used to be an alien with a past that had been shattered like the glass Ruth had just broken, used to have _this_ life… and then decided to stop.

“Well, I’m obviously _not_ the Doctor you know,” the Doctor said testily. “But you’re right: this is just a bluff. I need to buy some time—speaking of time, though…” She took Jenny’s hand— 

And then they were somewhere else.

“Welcome to the TARDIS,” the Doctor announced, gesturing at the control room that was, in Jenny’s opinion, kind of drab. She went to the console. “Come on, old girl, power up… need you right now…”

“What’s with the round things?” Jenny asked, pointing at the walls.

“Really? _That’s_ your first reaction to being in a time machine?” the Doctor demanded indignantly.

“Well, I’ve been in one before,” Jenny reminded her. _“This_ one, in fact. Ever thought about painting the walls? Getting a sofa or something?”

“We have more important things to worry about right now than my aesthetic preferences!”

“If that were the case, I’d start with a few comments on your shirt,” Jenny muttered. “Harry’d probably think it was the height of fashion—oh! We’ve got to find Harry and Lee!”

“I know, I _know,_ I’m scanning for them now,” the Doctor said impatiently.

Jenny frantically got out her phone and opened her contacts: maybe her phone could push through the jamming around Gloucester now that she was in the TARDIS—

“Someone’s teleported right outside the lighthouse.” the Doctor reported. “Their bioscan isn’t standard human.” Her voice was sharp with anxiety. “If it’s Gat, I need you to _stay in here._ Do _not_ wander off, do you understand me?”

Jenny nodded, but wrapped her fingers around the sonic screwdriver in her coat pocket, just in case.

The sound of the TARDIS dematerialising and materialising again was almost soothing enough to calm her nerves.

The Doctor checked the scanner again, bringing up a display showing someone sprawled in the wet sand— 

“It’s Harry,” Jenny said, running for the door.

She practically tackled her husband back down to the ground in her relief to see him safe. “What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he gasped, still trying to get his breath. “I was transported to the Judoon ship and they tried scanning me and then the ship self-destructed and I was back here.”

“They transported you to their ship?” Jenny asked, but another voice spoke over hers:

“The ship _self-destructed?”_ the Doctor asked incredulously.

Harry looked over Jenny’s shoulder. “What’s the TARDIS doing here?”

“It’s Ruth,” Jenny said, excitedly. “She was the Doctor, disguised with a Chameleon Arch—”

_Just like we were._

The Doctor interrupted. “You’re Harry, I assume?” When he nodded, still a bit wide-eyed, she beckoned to them both. “Come on, I’ll take you back to Gloucester.”

Once they were inside the TARDIS, and the ship was en route to its destination, the Doctor continued her questioning: “Why did the Judoon take you to their ship?”

Harry’s features twisted with a bitterness that Jenny had never seen on his face before. “I was with Lee when they tracked him down.”

“Is he safe?”

“Oh, he’s safe as _houses,”_ he spat. He smelled like the smoke from a chemical fire and the look in his eyes was not one that she knew.

Jenny felt an unpleasant sensation in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong… or at least very _very_ off. 

“He did some ‘olfactory misdirection’ thing and told them that _I_ was the fugitive,” he snapped. “He gave me up to save his own neck—”

“It wasn’t his neck,” the Doctor said. “It was mine.” She looked a bit disturbed by the explanation. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’d advise taking him away from here as soon as possible,” Harry said softly, “because if I ever see him again I’m going to hurt him very badly.”

Which was when Jenny realised what had happened on the Judoon ship.

But she couldn’t get into it now, not with her past self standing right there. 

They had arrived back in Gloucester, so she had an excuse to cut the conversation short. “It was nice seeing you again, Doctor,” Jenny said, managing to keep her voice steady, “even if this was your first time.”

The Doctor looked uncomfortable, even though she was obviously trying to be pleasant instead. “I wish I could say I look forward to seeing you again… but it looks like I have another memory wipe in my future. It was nice to _meet_ you, though.” She gave Harry a more calculating look. “You as well, Harry.”

“Goodbye, Doctor,” he replied.

After an awkward silence, Jenny and Harry exited the TARDIS and closed the door behind them. 

That old familiar metallic rasp filled the air, and then faded away to nothing as the ship vanished, leaving them alone together near the docks.

“It’s such a relief to be back,” he sighed, wrapping her in a tight hug.

But it wasn’t Harry’s embrace. “The last time we spoke, you looked like an evil Mary Poppins,” she said quietly.

“That corset nearly broke my ribs when I regenerated,” the Master murmured with a laugh. He still had his arms around her. “But to be fair, I _had_ just been shot in the back, so I was a bit too distracted at the time to worry about a costume change.”

“What happened to Harry?”

“Not to worry, he’s still in here… it’s just a bit crowded right now.” He laughed again; this time, Jenny could feel it on her neck. “I’m a terrible roommate: eating all the food in the fridge, hogging all the blankets, never taking out the trash… there’s not a lot of room left over for him to get a peek out the window. However…” He loosened his hold on her in order to look her in the eye, and to her relief, she recognised her husband.

“I’m here,” Harry whispered. “I’m all right.”

“Your pupils are two different sizes,” she couldn't help pointing out.

He winced. “I got hit in the head by a Judoon blaster. Definitely a concussion, possibly a skull fracture as well.”

“What really happened up there?” she asked.

“They were able to tell that I had bio-shielding,” Harry explained, “and sort of… jimmied the lock, as it were, which let his consciousness out.” He grimaced. “The rest of it was mostly monologues and explosions.”

“Sounds about right,” Jenny noted drily, but couldn’t quite keep a chill from running down her spine.

“No one knows they were here,” he said softly. “No one will come looking.” He brought his hand up to cup her cheek. “We’re safe.”

“Do you ever think sometimes about how extremely _weird_ our lives are?”

Harry laughed, and then leaned in to kiss her.

When his lips first met hers, Jenny was certain it was Harry… but that certainty began to fade as she felt a growing intensity behind that kiss, something fathomless, and noticed his arms tighten around her in a way that was unsettlingly possessive.

She pulled back. “Nice try,” she informed the Master.

His grin was predictably wicked. “How often do you get the chance to make out with an alien?”

“I bet you say that to all the Earthlings you debase yourself with,” she remarked wryly. “Besides, he’s a better kisser than you.”

He made a high-pitched noise of offense. “Harry Jones is barely three years old, you know—”

“So am I, if you’re going by that standard.”

“—meanwhile, _I_ am thousands of years old with far more experience and you think _he’s_ the better kisser?”

“Are you _sulking?”_ Jenny asked incredulously.

“I am not sulking!” he snapped grumpily, which would have sounded exactly like Harry if not for the faintest hint of a knife’s edge in everything he said.

She took another step back. “Am I in danger?”

“I— _he—_ just said that the Judoon won’t return.”

“I meant from you.”

Judging by his expression, she had surprised him. “You weren’t this afraid of Missy,” he pointed out.

“I was never alone with her.” She steeled herself before saying the next part: “And Missy hadn’t destroyed an entire planet at that point.”

Fortunately, he didn’t seem bothered by the accusation; in fact, he looked almost smug. “Oh, she definitely had… just not any planets that you would care about.”

“Try me.”

“I can’t even remember their names.” The Master sounded highly amused. “If a planet burns without a name, is it really an atrocity?”

It was probably better to return to the issue at hand: “You still haven’t answered my question: am I in danger? I’m human, after all. No one that matters.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

He stared into her eyes. “Leaving aside the fact that whenever I look at you I can feel Harry Jones _burning,_ inside that clever human mind of yours is the person who, for reasons I could spend another thousand years trying to figure out, is…” He seemed to be struggling to find the right phrase. “…is the center of all my little galaxies.”

For some reason, Jenny was a bit unnerved by that confession. “I can’t tell if that’s a positive or negative thing.”

“Neither can I. But it doesn’t make you insignificant. Besides,” he continued lightly, “Harry’s a rather annoying person to share a mind with—he’s got too many morals and scruples and would have been insufferable if I’d done something as tame as calling you a rude name.” His sulky expression returned. “I finally have a conscience and it has a name and a favourite colour.”

She wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t ignore the smell of smoke on his skin and clothes.

“If Harry’s still in there,” Jenny said, “if he’s your _conscience,_ why didn’t he keep you from destroying the Judoon ship?”

To her surprise, the Master flinched. He didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke: “Because he agreed that it had to be done.”

“Harry wouldn’t do that,” she insisted.

Whatever warmth had been in his expression before vanished, replaced by a horrible intensity. “If any of them had survived, they would have come back. They would have found the Claytons if they were still here and they would have found you—and if they found _you,_ then they would have detected the effects of the Chameleon Arch and they would have done the exact same thing to you that they did to Harry: cracked through the bio-shielding and let the Doctor’s consciousness out.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“And _you_ don’t know what the Judoon _or_ the Division are capable of,” he snapped. “You are something out of the ordinary and they wouldn’t have left you alone until they figured out why. From the Division’s perspective, any Gallifreyan technology on Earth that wasn’t under their control could only be for one purpose: to hide from them. And they would have torn apart your mind to find out the reason.”

Jenny shook her head. “With Ruth’s—the Doctor’s help, you could have figured out how to stop the Division without killing them. She’d have found a way.”

“She thought I was human and would have assumed that Lee was correct: the Judoon would scan Harry, realise their error, and take him back to Earth, at which point the Doctor would have recovered her memories and formed a plan. As far as I knew on that ship, she wouldn’t be coming to get me, not until it was too late, and during that time they might have found you and there would have been _nothing_ I could do about it. So I did the only thing I _could_ do: I stopped them. Permanently.”

It still didn’t sound like something Harry would agree to. “So the worst-case scenario,” she said, “is that the Doctor takes over my body for a few hours, just like you’ve taken over Harry’s. I’ll admit it’s not _ideal,_ but why is that such a terrible thing?”

“Because in order for Harry to come back, I’ll have to revert back to my Time Lord body and use the Arch again.”

Jenny felt her blood run cold as she understood what he meant. “Full cellular rewrite,” she whispered.

“Yes. And as much fun as it would be to watch the Doctor deal with the joys of impending motherhood, she couldn’t last for a whole month, let alone two. Time Lord minds and human biology do not mix at all well—right now, I am _fizzing away_ inside Harry’s brain. The whole Chameleon Arch setup makes it a little more bearable, since part of my consciousness was in there already, but within a week his mind would overload and he’d burn up. And the same thing would happen to you and the Doctor, so do you understand _now_ why Harry agreed to go along with what I planned?”

It was a choice between their family and an external threat. She could see why Harry would be tempted, especially when the Master had the gall to insist that they were doing it for _her._

She also had a sneaking suspicion that he had lied to Harry—and possibly to himself—about a few aspects of the plan.

“I understand,” she said, “but I still hate it. And I hate you for it.”

He gave the slightest hint of a shrug, but Jenny noticed the flash of hurt in his eyes. “If it’s any consolation, he hates me too.”

She had made her point; there was no reason to keep dwelling on it. “We should head back to the Airbnb,” she said wearily, “pack up our things, and go home to Leeds tonight.”

The Master shook his head. “I have a concussion and you look dead on your feet. Neither of us are in any shape to drive without a few hours of sleep first, and by ‘us’ I mean you.”

“Harry thought you had a skull fracture. We should get you a CT scan.”

“It’s unlikely—besides, once I reset things with the Chameleon Arch, it’ll undo any injuries.”

Jenny spent their short walk back to their rented flat (as well as the quick stop for chips on the way) pondering the implications of that: using a full cellular revision to reset the body to a pre-programmed default certainly had quite a bit of potential, especially for the treatment of injuries. It was also likely to have more precise results than the cellular regeneration techniques she had been working on in the lab, whose outcomes tended to be a bit randomized.

If she could find a way to reverse-engineer some of the technology from the Chameleon Arch, that could be a very interesting avenue of research… 

But she also remembered the process being extremely painful, and was already aware through her work on regeneration that Gallifreyan biotech didn’t mix particularly well with human anaesthetics or analgesics.

_Hmm… I’ll have to look into that further._

By the time they returned to the flat, Jenny was forced to grudgingly admit that the Master had a point: she really needed some sleep before she could drive anywhere.

When she had finished getting ready for bed and came into the bedroom, she found him staring out the window at the night sky. He had changed his clothes as well.

“I could probably name every star up there,” he murmured. “I’ve certainly been stuck on Earth long enough to memorize them.”

Jenny was suddenly seized with the irrational fear that the Master might not want to change back into Harry at all, and there wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it. They had come so close to losing one another before, after their final trip in the TARDIS opened the biodata modules that had created Jenny Smith and Harry Jones in the first place. If the two Time Lords hadn’t decided to go back… 

She shuddered. 

He apparently misinterpreted her reaction as fear for her physical safety. “I told you earlier: you’re not in any danger from me.”

 _Yes, I am,_ she said silently, _just not for the reasons you think._

Jenny started to look around for extra pillows. With Harry absent, she was going to have to take a few precautions in case she fell out of bed during the night.

“You don’t have to do that,” the Master said. “I’m aware of how the arrangement works.” He lay down on the bed and gestured at the space beside him.

_Do you ever think sometimes about how extremely weird our lives are?_

She sighed, switched off the lights, and climbed into bed, laying on her side with her back facing him.

After a moment, she felt his arms around her and his legs tangled up with hers, holding her in place.

“The Doctor used to do this too,” he said softly. “Couldn’t keep still… I had to practically lie on top of him. The first time we shared a bed, he rolled over and punched me in the face.”

Jenny couldn’t help smiling at the mental image. “And what did you do?”

“Assumed it was intentional and punched him back. Bit of a rude awakening, but to be fair he did start it. We had matching black eyes the next day.”

“The two of you were together?” She knew that the Doctor and the Master had been friends, but she hadn’t quite picked up on that aspect of their relationship. Any of the Doctor’s memories from that time were too distant for her to recall. 

He made a quiet sound of amusement. “It was… complicated. We were so young back then—well, I was, at least: it turns out that the Doctor had lived far longer than either of us realised—and we had no idea what we were doing. Feeling that… _intensely_ about someone for the first time in my life… I just wanted him close.”

“Your arms around his waist or your hands around his throat.” She smiled. “I know what that’s like.”

“It’s what makes being Harry so satisfying,” he admitted. “It feels like back then, before it all fell apart.”

Jenny breathed a silent sigh of relief. Harry wasn’t gone. The Master hadn’t taken him away for good. She would be back in his arms soon enough.

But for now, she was in the arms of this strange ancient alien with the blood of billions on his hands.

“Rest,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

For that brief moment, he sounded exactly like Harry.

Perhaps he was.

Only a few minutes later, Jenny was fast asleep.

* * *

The Master waited until her breathing softened into the gentle rhythm of sleep, then waited a little longer, just in case.

Finally, when he could be certain that only one person was likely to hear him, he whispered, “I know you’re in there.”

Jenny didn’t move or otherwise indicate that he had disturbed her, so he kept going. “I figured this was easier, with her asleep. Not as much interference. And besides, this way you won’t interrupt me while I’m monologuing.”

“So.” He wasn’t sure how to begin. “Hi,” was all he could manage.

But it was enough: “Haven’t had this much fun in ages. It was a shame you weren’t there to see it, though you’d have griped about it the whole time. It was probably the closest I’ve come to saving the world—well, helping you out with the Monks and whatnot, I suppose that counted.

“I wonder what happened to that piano? It was in the Vault when we left to have that unfortunate incident on the Mondasian colony ship… and we both regenerated after that, didn’t we? Maybe it’s still there.”

He moved his hands a little bit to rest them on the curve of her stomach. “And this… this is very weird. It must be even stranger for you, of course. Making tiny… creatures. Been awhile for both of us, and you’d never had to do _this_ particular part in your previous incarnations.

“Or maybe you have? There’s a lot of ‘you’ that you don’t know… that you’ll probably never know. Case in point: our friend from earlier today in the very nice shirt. Would have been nice to spend some time with _her,_ but… well, I was feeling a bit too murderous to have made a good first impression.

He frowned. “The bit that I still can’t figure out is Lee. I mean, it’s not _entirely_ surprising since you can’t go to the grocery store without abducting half a dozen bipedal rascals along the way, but he didn’t really seem your type. For one thing, he wasn’t human—in fact, I’m pretty sure he was Gallifreyan—which is a rare pick for you… but who knows what your life was like back then?”

He was silent for a moment, thinking it over. 

“I wondered, though: what if he was me? Maybe you’re not the only one who’s lived longer than they thought. I did joke that I’d have made a great Division operative. Maybe we were there together.

“And of course, it wouldn’t be the only time I’ve double-crossed myself.”

“But that’s unlikely,” he sighed. “I looked through the Matrix for any sign that I’d been anyone else… that I was like you… and there was nothing. Just the lonely child of a well-off Gallifreyan, whose life changed forever when he met you.” He shut his eyes. “All that I am… _yet again,_ it was because of you.

“I might never stop being angry about that. I might never forgive you for it.”

For a few minutes, he lay there, trying to keep the rage and pain at a distance.

To his surprise, it did fade, and was replaced not by his own emotions, but with Harry’s: a quiet ache for the person in his arms and the promise of things to come.

“I suppose that’s why it worked for Jenny and Harry when it didn’t work for us,” he mused. “Because they’re more or less the same. There’s no inferiority complex to worry about, nothing to resent, no gap to bridge… just silly little humans being human together.

“Yes, I’m being saccharine, but it’s not as though you can tease me for it at the moment.

“Maybe in dreams… I sometimes think I can hear you, when we’re slumbering in their minds. That little psychic workaround when the lines blur just a little more than usual.

“I can’t tell if I miss you… but it’s nice knowing that you’re… close.”

Impulsively, he placed a kiss on her shoulder, one gentle enough that Jenny wouldn’t wake up.

“Goodnight, you infuriating nuisance,” he whispered, resting his forehead against the nape of her neck.

He wasn’t sure how likely he was to fall asleep. Time Lords needed far less sleep than humans, but it was a human body that he was occupying at the moment.

While he waited for the outcome to that question, he let his thoughts wander a bit more, and let the boundary between himself and Harry Jones blur just a little more.

There were certain kinds of thoughts that only came when one was the only person awake, lying in the dark, thinking about breath and the passage of time… and a particular piece of knowledge that he had spent so long running from, a weakness in his blood and bones: 

_You are going to die one day._

But somehow, in this peculiar human heart, he had found a way to accept this. 

Yes, he would die one day. That was inescapable. In the meantime, however, he had this impossible creature in his arms.

_The center of all my little galaxies…_

He could think of worse ways to spend the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! A few folks have asked in the comments about how the timeline works, namely "where are Thirteen and the fam if they're not in this episode?" The short answer: "Timey Wimey reasons." The long answer: [charts.](https://hinerdsitscat.tumblr.com/post/619662324467466240/the-problem-with-making-everything-an-au-of-an-au)


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